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That pitch reads so much like a kid's self-insert fanfic. "And he's the coolest, the smartest, the richest, and he totally has a girlfriend who lives in Canada so you wouldn't know her!"
Especially when the charm of Slam Dunk is that everyone is deeply flawed. Sakuragi is basically a loser who can't help hut get in fights,but has a heart of gold. He's clearly an inspiration for Ichigo from Bleach (and I'd argue Rukawa is Ishida)
Would have been very awkward to brand T-Mac as "The World's First Black Superhero" right when Blade was hitting theatres. This may explain why that pitch didn't go very far.
@@jadedheartszBut it would still be not true. Spawn is a stereotypical superhero, with the costume, cape and everything, and he already existed, and is black.
Black Panther was around even longer, debuting in the comics sometime in the 60's, and Cyborg debuted in the 80's, even appearing in the later seasons of Superfriends. So no T-Mac, you're nowhere NEAR the first black superhero.
Let's face it, I probably would watch a basketball TV show with mechs for the sheer absurdity alone. Don't know if they need Tracy McGrady, specifically, to make this show work, but it could work.
Just to be clear, Slam Dunk isn't just a fairly popular sports series. It is neck-and-neck with Dragon Ball Z for the second highest selling manga series in the entire history of Shonen Jump. The fact that it was nearly turned into a James Bond knockoff is wild, but that was just how the industry worked at the time.
Saying that's it's neck to neck with Dragon Ball is misleading, and not true as well. It's probably not even the most popular sports-related japanese franchise, as I believe Captain Tsubasa had a much bigger cultural impact worldwide. It is a huge title, with a massive fanbase, and longevity, that's impressive enough, there is no need to inflate it's accomplishments, they are great enough.
@@ligeiasiren4290 (said monotonously) tbf, all Slam Dunk did was help give popularity to basketball in Japan, help spread the popularity of the sport in Asia outside of the Philippines, established a scholarship that became a stepping stone for Japanese youth into international sports (especially basketball), and become the best selling sports manga of all time, besides also kickstarting Takehiko Inoue's career.
@@ligeiasiren4290 while Captain Tsubasa had a huge impact in Japan and across the world, I'd say Slam Dunk's impact is huge in various parts of the world as well. To be clear, according to some sources Slam Dunk's manga has sold over 170 copies, while Captain Tsubasa has sold over 90 million. Captain Tsubasa had more TV anime adaptations though, but Slam Dunk received a movie adaptation in late 2022 called The First Slam Dunk, that became the fifth highest-grossing Japanese film worlwide and the thirteenth highest-grossing film in Japan alone. Slam Dunk was very popular in various Asian countries like China, South Korea and the Philippines, and it Latin America it was huge in countires like Chile. Heck, the new movie got dubbed last year and, unlike the Japanese version, they managed to bring back many of the original VAs fromt the original anime and it had a good run in theater despite having a limited release in some countries
This is *so* insane and out of left field I have to wonder why they were even trying to tie this to Slam Dunk at all. It barely has anything to do with BASKETBALL!
Of all the Americanized anime pitches seen in this series so far, this one has to be the most bizarre one so far. At least the Toon Makers Sailor Moon pilot had elements of the source material, at least the Gundam pitches had interesting concepts for sci-fi stories despite the apparent lack of giant robots, and at least Eagle Force was a (very loose) adaptation of a series that could easily be adapted into a Tokusatsu. But... how do you screw up something as simple as Slam Dunk? It's an anime about _basketball,_ probably the single most mundane series of all of them. There's literally no sci-fi or fantasy elements in it whatsoever like in the others, and is probably the only one of these series being "adapted" that could arguably be set in the "real world"... and somehow they decide that's not good enough.
It makes me wonder if the success of Slam Dunk just inspired the producers about the idea of making a show about basketball. But the thing is, there's very few U.S. cartoons that are just down to earth stories about sports with some slice-of-life elements. I mean, they could just used Slam Dunk as an inspiration but focusing on a U.S. high-school basketball team, they didn't have to include sci-fi elements or something. It didn't have to be in cartoon either, they could've made a live-action series for all-ages
It’s like asking why the 1997 Speed Racer remake gave up racing so the cast could be spies and some shit. Just discovered after learning about that I was glad I stopped watching the show at its peak. Incompetent showrunners. They could’ve easily chosen any other anime that fit the bill. The one thing that kills me about this is that there wasn’t an anime boom where anyone would know any different. There wasn’t a Mystic Samurai of Amaterasu, after all. In a way, this feels similar to how later filmmakers would constantly choose anime series besides the ones which would be a slam dunk (pun intended) to adapt like MONSTER, Death Note or the like. They went for ones that were too expensive. Or managed to mess up one for whatever reason.
@@pablocasas5906I can imagine how corny that would be. I just keep thinking back to 7th Heaven or the sports episodes from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to how that would turn out.
@@ByTheStorm The 1997 Speed Racer series did WHAT!? I know the English dub only lasted 13 episodes, but if it really went in THAT direction, it might be a good thing it was cancelled before that point.
A cancelled NBA anime Spin-Off about Tracy McGrady and it's associated with Bandai? What?! I never imagined this would be a thing in anime history, but with what Ray Mona has found so far deep in the storage of The Library of Congress, I shouldn't be surprised.
This is wild. Wouldn’t this require more animation. How is first black super hero??? This is so weird. I don’t even understand would it use footage from slam dunk. It’s like a fever
OK, I was watching a deep dive last night about Nintendo games, and they recommended your lost girl games episodes, watches those, and you got a FUCKIN TMAC EPISODE? Hell yeah
Was there anything actually tying this back to Slam Dunk? Beyond the mention of basketball there is nothing in common. I don't think the manga itself spurred some huge merch craze in Japan like any of the other more obvious targets in RA's library either. This just sounds like another celeb cartoon vehicle, which (as you pointed out) was en vogue for a while. Basketball players have had a few of those. Tony Parker's Baskup, The Lebrons, Shaq even did a car-toon last year. The latter was made by Andy Heyward's current company. He was responsible for creating most of DIC's celeb tie-in stuff and is working on an animated Wolfgang Puck cooking show ...
While Slam Dunk did not move a lot of merchandise, it had plenty of video games and what little merchandise there's of the show it mostly composed of figures replica uniforms from the basketball teams from the series. Slam Dunk is more of a manga and anime focused franchise, since it's one of the best-selling manga of all time and the recent The First Slam Dunk became one of the highest-grossing Japanese movies of all time
Anyone else getting flashbacks of the unsold Governator cartoon from Stan Lee's short lived POW entertainment company? Wow. Okay, on it's own this doesn't sound like a bad cartoon, Marty Stu vibes aside, I have to ask. Why are American animation companies so afraid of showing sports in a sports cartoon? Sports anime is a staple in Japan as we all know, but we rarely have any sports cartoons where they actually do anything sports related. The only ones I can think of are Wacky Races and Mutant League. Everything else is sports stars going on weird adventures (Prostars) or doing something goofy (Hulk Hogan's Rock N Wrestling). Even when Nickelodeon did a HORRIBLE NFL based cartoon, it was meerly a bad Power Rangers knockoff with thin football theming. This is another classic example of ignoring the sports aspect. Oh...and "first black superhero?" Ignoring anything before the 90's, I'm pretty sure Static Shock came out about a year before this pitch.
I could also mention Space Jam but that’s only a hybrid of live-action and animation and not fully animated. The original Space Jam was alright but the second film, A New Legacy, was a huge train-wreck.
@@thedrewster0408 First of all, that's a sports MOVIE, which are a dime a dozen and NOT a full series narrative. Secondly, stop pretending that the original Space Jam is an all time classic. BOTH movies were undeniably stupid, everyone just likes the first one because they were five and at their Grandma's when they saw it. Back in Action was the GOOD LT hybrid film.
@@thedrewster0408 It should be known that the original Space Jam was considered a joke at the time. Even Animaniacs was savage about it. Of course, considering what's been happening with HBO Max, the second one became oddly prophetic. But still, sports movies are a tried and true genre. And some even spawned series. Bad News Bears and especially the Rocky/Creed franchise. I am baffled why they couldn't get any of that in cartoon form. Sure, Bad News Bears had an obscure sitcom, but it was still a live action series. Seems any time there was a cartoon with a sports theme, the emphasis was wacky adventures, not sports. Though, I can't blame Hulk Hogan Rock N' Wrestling. That was a network show in the 80's, and there was a strict no fighting violence edict during that period. Had it been syndicated, I'm sure they could have gotten away with it.
Hello there Ray Mona. I know you are good at uncovering mysteries and so I want to tell about an anime Mon Cheri Coco. It was a complete mystery back then but no one really talks about it. I have hope you can uncover the mystery of Mon Cheri Coco
I have no idea how this even connects to Slam Dunk in the first place, like so many others here, and I don't even know who the baller in question is (but also I'm not a sportsman so if it's not Jordan, O'Neil, Barkley or Rodman I'm just lost in general) but I am cackling at the sheer indulgence and ego in this script. Just... not one ounce of humility anywhere. I'm not even sure if I dislike it.
Based on the designs that were shown and it being around the time T-Mac was relatively big in the Basketball scene... I kind of think it would have succeeded to some degree!
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That pitch reads so much like a kid's self-insert fanfic. "And he's the coolest, the smartest, the richest, and he totally has a girlfriend who lives in Canada so you wouldn't know her!"
That sounds like a typical Mary Sue if there ever was one.
Especially when the charm of Slam Dunk is that everyone is deeply flawed. Sakuragi is basically a loser who can't help hut get in fights,but has a heart of gold. He's clearly an inspiration for Ichigo from Bleach (and I'd argue Rukawa is Ishida)
TMac walked so that Mike Tyson mysteries could run. Truly
Would have been very awkward to brand T-Mac as "The World's First Black Superhero" right when Blade was hitting theatres. This may explain why that pitch didn't go very far.
to be fair Blade isn't really a superhero on the same level as say other MCU characters so perhaps that's what they meant.
@@jadedheartsz Different POV: There wasn't even a MCU when Blade was in theatres. Blade was bigger than Iron Man back then.
@@jadedheartszBut it would still be not true. Spawn is a stereotypical superhero, with the costume, cape and everything, and he already existed, and is black.
Black Panther was around even longer, debuting in the comics sometime in the 60's, and Cyborg debuted in the 80's, even appearing in the later seasons of Superfriends. So no T-Mac, you're nowhere NEAR the first black superhero.
Along with never making it out of the first round
Let's face it, I probably would watch a basketball TV show with mechs for the sheer absurdity alone.
Don't know if they need Tracy McGrady, specifically, to make this show work, but it could work.
Mister Hurricane, Banjou Haran would like to have a word. If you don't fear the shine of his sun...
No one cared about Basquash, sorry.
Just to be clear, Slam Dunk isn't just a fairly popular sports series. It is neck-and-neck with Dragon Ball Z for the second highest selling manga series in the entire history of Shonen Jump. The fact that it was nearly turned into a James Bond knockoff is wild, but that was just how the industry worked at the time.
Nop, is is in the top 100 in shonen jump and in history, but series like one piece and naruto beats it by a lot, specially one piece
Saying that's it's neck to neck with Dragon Ball is misleading, and not true as well. It's probably not even the most popular sports-related japanese franchise, as I believe Captain Tsubasa had a much bigger cultural impact worldwide.
It is a huge title, with a massive fanbase, and longevity, that's impressive enough, there is no need to inflate it's accomplishments, they are great enough.
Dragon Ball Z is a TV show, not a "manga".
@@ligeiasiren4290 (said monotonously) tbf, all Slam Dunk did was help give popularity to basketball in Japan, help spread the popularity of the sport in Asia outside of the Philippines, established a scholarship that became a stepping stone for Japanese youth into international sports (especially basketball), and become the best selling sports manga of all time, besides also kickstarting Takehiko Inoue's career.
@@ligeiasiren4290 while Captain Tsubasa had a huge impact in Japan and across the world, I'd say Slam Dunk's impact is huge in various parts of the world as well. To be clear, according to some sources Slam Dunk's manga has sold over 170 copies, while Captain Tsubasa has sold over 90 million. Captain Tsubasa had more TV anime adaptations though, but Slam Dunk received a movie adaptation in late 2022 called The First Slam Dunk, that became the fifth highest-grossing Japanese film worlwide and the thirteenth highest-grossing film in Japan alone. Slam Dunk was very popular in various Asian countries like China, South Korea and the Philippines, and it Latin America it was huge in countires like Chile. Heck, the new movie got dubbed last year and, unlike the Japanese version, they managed to bring back many of the original VAs fromt the original anime and it had a good run in theater despite having a limited release in some countries
Jackie Chan Adventures is great and had heaps of plotlines
One more thing yes dude yes
This is so 80s/90s it hurts
This is *so* insane and out of left field I have to wonder why they were even trying to tie this to Slam Dunk at all. It barely has anything to do with BASKETBALL!
Can’t believe we were robbed of this
Of all the Americanized anime pitches seen in this series so far, this one has to be the most bizarre one so far. At least the Toon Makers Sailor Moon pilot had elements of the source material, at least the Gundam pitches had interesting concepts for sci-fi stories despite the apparent lack of giant robots, and at least Eagle Force was a (very loose) adaptation of a series that could easily be adapted into a Tokusatsu.
But... how do you screw up something as simple as Slam Dunk? It's an anime about _basketball,_ probably the single most mundane series of all of them. There's literally no sci-fi or fantasy elements in it whatsoever like in the others, and is probably the only one of these series being "adapted" that could arguably be set in the "real world"... and somehow they decide that's not good enough.
That explains why SlamDunk is better off with its own creator Takehiko Inoue, himself a grandmaster of both realistic Shonen and Seinen art styles.
It makes me wonder if the success of Slam Dunk just inspired the producers about the idea of making a show about basketball. But the thing is, there's very few U.S. cartoons that are just down to earth stories about sports with some slice-of-life elements. I mean, they could just used Slam Dunk as an inspiration but focusing on a U.S. high-school basketball team, they didn't have to include sci-fi elements or something. It didn't have to be in cartoon either, they could've made a live-action series for all-ages
It’s like asking why the 1997 Speed Racer remake gave up racing so the cast could be spies and some shit. Just discovered after learning about that I was glad I stopped watching the show at its peak.
Incompetent showrunners. They could’ve easily chosen any other anime that fit the bill. The one thing that kills me about this is that there wasn’t an anime boom where anyone would know any different. There wasn’t a Mystic Samurai of Amaterasu, after all.
In a way, this feels similar to how later filmmakers would constantly choose anime series besides the ones which would be a slam dunk (pun intended) to adapt like MONSTER, Death Note or the like. They went for ones that were too expensive. Or managed to mess up one for whatever reason.
@@pablocasas5906I can imagine how corny that would be. I just keep thinking back to 7th Heaven or the sports episodes from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to how that would turn out.
@@ByTheStorm The 1997 Speed Racer series did WHAT!? I know the English dub only lasted 13 episodes, but if it really went in THAT direction, it might be a good thing it was cancelled before that point.
T-Mac sounds like an ally in the animated sitcom Venture Bros.
Oh god, the introduction of the pitch is Poochie as hell.
😂😂
A cancelled NBA anime Spin-Off about Tracy McGrady and it's associated with Bandai? What?! I never imagined this would be a thing in anime history, but with what Ray Mona has found so far deep in the storage of The Library of Congress, I shouldn't be surprised.
ooh Justin Whang doing a voiceover neat
This is wild. Wouldn’t this require more animation. How is first black super hero??? This is so weird. I don’t even understand would it use footage from slam dunk. It’s like a fever
OK, I was watching a deep dive last night about Nintendo games, and they recommended your lost girl games episodes, watches those, and you got a FUCKIN TMAC EPISODE? Hell yeah
Damn that pitch was just lightyears away from Slam Dunk. Feels like they just wanted to use the title and that's it.
as usual your investigation work is ace!
This is so wild!
I don't think anyone would have ever seen this coming.
What I wanted: Slam Dunk but based on T-Mac's life
What Frank Ward wanted: some robot stuff and LOOSE CANNON COP WHO DOESN'T PLAY BY THE RULES
Was there anything actually tying this back to Slam Dunk? Beyond the mention of basketball there is nothing in common. I don't think the manga itself spurred some huge merch craze in Japan like any of the other more obvious targets in RA's library either. This just sounds like another celeb cartoon vehicle, which (as you pointed out) was en vogue for a while. Basketball players have had a few of those. Tony Parker's Baskup, The Lebrons, Shaq even did a car-toon last year. The latter was made by Andy Heyward's current company. He was responsible for creating most of DIC's celeb tie-in stuff and is working on an animated Wolfgang Puck cooking show ...
While Slam Dunk did not move a lot of merchandise, it had plenty of video games and what little merchandise there's of the show it mostly composed of figures replica uniforms from the basketball teams from the series. Slam Dunk is more of a manga and anime focused franchise, since it's one of the best-selling manga of all time and the recent The First Slam Dunk became one of the highest-grossing Japanese movies of all time
I like when you realizes a investigation work.saludos desde argentina
What a fantastically weird anime adaptation!
Imagine if Pew Di Pie has a cartoon show
That was really a bold pitch
😂😂
Anyone else getting flashbacks of the unsold Governator cartoon from Stan Lee's short lived POW entertainment company? Wow. Okay, on it's own this doesn't sound like a bad cartoon, Marty Stu vibes aside, I have to ask. Why are American animation companies so afraid of showing sports in a sports cartoon? Sports anime is a staple in Japan as we all know, but we rarely have any sports cartoons where they actually do anything sports related. The only ones I can think of are Wacky Races and Mutant League. Everything else is sports stars going on weird adventures (Prostars) or doing something goofy (Hulk Hogan's Rock N Wrestling). Even when Nickelodeon did a HORRIBLE NFL based cartoon, it was meerly a bad Power Rangers knockoff with thin football theming. This is another classic example of ignoring the sports aspect.
Oh...and "first black superhero?" Ignoring anything before the 90's, I'm pretty sure Static Shock came out about a year before this pitch.
I could also mention Space Jam but that’s only a hybrid of live-action and animation and not fully animated. The original Space Jam was alright but the second film, A New Legacy, was a huge train-wreck.
@@thedrewster0408 First of all, that's a sports MOVIE, which are a dime a dozen and NOT a full series narrative. Secondly, stop pretending that the original Space Jam is an all time classic. BOTH movies were undeniably stupid, everyone just likes the first one because they were five and at their Grandma's when they saw it. Back in Action was the GOOD LT hybrid film.
@@mightyfilm that’s why I just say that it’s alright, nothing bad but nothing good either.
@@thedrewster0408 It should be known that the original Space Jam was considered a joke at the time. Even Animaniacs was savage about it. Of course, considering what's been happening with HBO Max, the second one became oddly prophetic.
But still, sports movies are a tried and true genre. And some even spawned series. Bad News Bears and especially the Rocky/Creed franchise. I am baffled why they couldn't get any of that in cartoon form. Sure, Bad News Bears had an obscure sitcom, but it was still a live action series. Seems any time there was a cartoon with a sports theme, the emphasis was wacky adventures, not sports. Though, I can't blame Hulk Hogan Rock N' Wrestling. That was a network show in the 80's, and there was a strict no fighting violence edict during that period. Had it been syndicated, I'm sure they could have gotten away with it.
All of these are always so insteresting, and such an fascinating inside peek at the industry 👀 🍿
Hello there Ray Mona. I know you are good at uncovering mysteries and so I want to tell about an anime Mon Cheri Coco. It was a complete mystery back then but no one really talks about it. I have hope you can uncover the mystery of Mon Cheri Coco
I have no idea how this even connects to Slam Dunk in the first place, like so many others here, and I don't even know who the baller in question is (but also I'm not a sportsman so if it's not Jordan, O'Neil, Barkley or Rodman I'm just lost in general) but I am cackling at the sheer indulgence and ego in this script. Just... not one ounce of humility anywhere. I'm not even sure if I dislike it.
Do you believe this series would’ve been a success if I’ve got released?
Based on the designs that were shown and it being around the time T-Mac was relatively big in the Basketball scene... I kind of think it would have succeeded to some degree!
Basically this was going to be a total different product 😂 they changed everything
Yeah, this does not sound like Slam Dunk and something more of a cartoon similar other superhero cartoons.
😮
This reminds me of the bizarre Bruce Willis cartoon , Bruno The Kid. He voices a snarky child computer genius that gets recruited to be a spy.